Motion
by Kakawot
Summary: 07 - Five introspective short stories on the theme: motion. Told from the 'bots point of view.
1. Weather

**A/N: **These are five short introspective stories centered on the theme: motion. They're told from the 'bots from the '07-movie point of view. If I did it right, it should be obvious which story is told from which point of view, because I don't mention any names. Please tell me if I succeeded or not =)

(Bear in mind English isn't my mother language, so please notify me of any grammar or spelling mistakes. Spell check said everything is okay, but you know how reliable those are.)

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If there was one thing that could be said about the Earth, it was always in motion. In 365 ¼ days the planet orbited around Sol, making the weather change from searing hot to snow so cold he wasn't sure he could transform without shattering his old joints like glass.

And when it wasn't snowing or a clear blue sky, it was rainy or gloomy or cloudy or some other word ending in –y. So many words to describe evaporated water in the sky he still mixed them up, earning him some funny looks from the inhabitants of this planet.

Why they insisted on talking about the weather so much escaped him. Maybe because it was ever-changing, never the same.

Even his war-hardened optics could appreciate the fluffy white skywater. Every tuft of wind created new formations, and coupled with the visible UV-rays from Sol he had witnessed some amazing displays. He'd secretly made a recording of the sky on June 15, and kept it in his memory banks in the folder of 'things why I keep this old body going'.

Layers upon layers of evaporated had hung lower over the property of the Lennox's, but the wind had poked holes in the vast expanse of whitegray. Through these windows there'd been cumulonimbus clouds, gray at the bottom but blindingly white at the top.

They reminded him of the Crystal Towers on Cybertron in its golden days. The first time he saw the Towers, he was a small youngling, staring up through the smog. A Seeker trine had disturbed the smog with their turbulence, and the goldenwhite light of the Towers had shone down on those not fortunate enough to be Tower-mechs.

When looking up, it was as if there was a whole other world, just beyond reach and gone the moment you scanned it. It was a world untouched by war and death, because it'd just fall apart and reform somewhere else.

All too soon the wind had forced the clouds together and the ancient mech was once again deprived of the unattainable peace.

And yet, every raindrop on his windshield, every mini-tornado as he drove through fog, it all meant this planet was alive. It was in motion.


	2. Sunsets

If there was one thing that could be said about the Earth, it was always in motion. But some things stayed the same, no matter the events of that day, decade or even millennium.

Funny thing was, motion made these reruns possible. Without the movement of the Earth on its axis and its orbit around Sol, there would be no sunrises or sunsets.

Humans had written thousands of poems about those daily occurrences. Other daily happenings were rarely if ever waxed about, such as bowel movement or car accidents, but those burning gasses in the sky, hoo boy.

Alright, so every sunset was different, with the UVA and UVB rays diminishing every second, drawing patterns on the oblivious humans milling about. And perhaps the fading colors and brilliant orange-tinted sky were nice to watch, every minute with different hues.

Maybe the awakening nightly hunters trundling in the bushes were fun to scan and track as they used the grey dawn to catch their prey.

Still, it was a daily happening and there should not be made such a fuss about it. Even if the sun was one of the few constants in a human life. Everything else around them changed at a frightening rapid pace, sometimes too rapid for the tastes of this Cybertronian.

Back when he was working in one of the repair centers of Iacon, orns went by without the slightest change in tools or procedure. And that suited him just fine.

For a ball of gas in the sky, it represented a lot for the humans. They owed their lives to it. It was one of their constants.

Every sunset meant their planet was alive. It was in motion.

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**A/N: **In about three days I'll post the other three. I still have to polish them until they shine like Ironhide's smokestacks.


	3. Humans

If there was one thing that could be said about the Earth, it was always in motion. But not only the planet was in motion, its occupants were as well.

He'd been here for three years now, looking for the Allspark or any clues leading to its location. But while he was on this planet tracking the Witwicky-family and their intertwining fate with the Allspark, he had time to observe this planet's dominant species.

The first thing he observed, was that they never. Held. Still.

Maybe it was the rhythm of their beating heart, but they always moved. When they sat down in front of their primitive external input terminals (computers, they called them), they were wriggling their fingers, thumping their feet or swiveling in their chairs. In rare occasions he'd seen humans keep still, particularly when they were engrossed by something.

It was bordering on frightening for the relatively slow Cybertronian. Sure, he could be lightning-fast when needed, but he did not possess that urge to move like the humans did. He could hold still for days if necessary, bundled up in his alt-form. Some animals possessed that ability as well, such as spiders or a praying mantis. Though they struck out to catch prey, whereas he didn't need any biological sustenance.

He amused himself by imagining various Autobots and their insect counterparts. The irony of his chose human name was not lost on him, for he'd chosen to name himself after a small flying insect.

Those insects never stayed put either, always buzzing around. Perhaps not the best choice, seeing their behavior, but 'Mantis' wasn't a very good name for him either. All the Cybertronians'd have to be named Mantis if you named them after insects.

It was three years later that he was beginning to understand this need to move. After the events of Mission City the mech asked to be guardian of the tiny human that had somehow beaten the Decepticon lord. By observing and working with this human, he got the feeling he was so much more… alive. He didn't like to dwell on it, but the organics had such short life spans. Maybe this made them feel the urge to make the most of every day, because you never knew if you might breathe tomorrow.

Cybertronians had the luxury of laying still, their hard bodies would protect them from a lot of dangers. That, and billions of years to hone the art of waiting to perfection.

The human dragged the mech to all kinds of alien places, in rare occasions did he stay at home. And even then, the boy moved about the house, doing chores for his parental units or finishing his assigned mental tasks (homework, the humans called it).

And all this moving about somehow pleased the mech. At first, it was too overwhelming, but after a human life span of living with this exodusing organic he felt he could never be the same again. He would hold on to this aspect of this personality (and perhaps this new flighty name as well) for the duration of his life span.

Every time the boy drummed his fingers against the table, it meant this planet was alive. It was in motion.


	4. Life

**A/N:** Warning, this is a bit darker than previous installments.

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If there was one thing that could be said about the Earth, it was always in motion. And frighteningly fast too. In a Cybertronian blink months had passed. It wasn't uncommon for their kind to lose track of time when they were busy working on a project, only to emerge years later to find the world had changed. Well, on Cybertron, things would've changed very little.

But here, on Earth, entire countries could rise or fall in those years, new kinds of transportation had been invented, or there had been a cultural shift.

So this Cybertronian had to keep his wits about him and keep up with the politics. Only, they were so hard to keep up with. Every few years there was a shift in power, a new president, a new Senator, new people to introduce to the Autobots. And before you knew it, they too were gone, and a fresh wide-eyed human was led through the huge base.

Even the fast-talking boy grew up, became their trusted liaison, but all too soon was lost to the dust of time, or as the humans said: dead, but not forgotten.

This made Earth so dangerous to the Autobots. The Decepticons called the 'bots soft-hearted among worse things, but that insult was true. They grew too attached to the enigmatic human race. But it was too painful to keep that up for long.

Humans had another saying: life goes on.

And that had to be the cruelest saying in history. On Cybertron in its golden days, mechs lived for so long it was a rare and shocking occurrence if someone died. They were mourned for many years, and it was not unheard of that the partner of the deceased mech gave up on life as well.

It made it easy to count on mechs to always be alive, to never really consider what your life would be like without them. Or how you had impact on someone else's life, because you'd be around to rectify any erroneous judgments.

Of course, with the war, this outlook on life drastically changed. But it still hurt so bad every time one of his Autobots failed to report in after battle. He had to learn to work through his grief quickly, lest he'd fall under the emotions.

But on Earth, after the Mission City battle and loss of Jazz, life calmed down. It allowed him to get to know his squad on a much more personal level, and with life on Earth came knowledge of the humans. Along with their fast bodies and xenophobic mindset came the morbid humor.

Death and taxes, for example. Two certainties, though one a lot more gruesome than the other. Were he human, he'd have joked _yeah, taxes_.

This kind of thinking, he'd never fully grasp it. Some humans treated life as a joke, and when they died, they were mourned, but not for long. Because, as cruel as it is, life goes on. Humans were too busy living to grasp the finality of death.

Perhaps that was their greatest strength. Cybertronians were afraid to die, so dangerous experiments were rarely conducted. But humans, they performed them all the time. They explored the farthest regions, with utter disregard for the dangers of the journey or the destination.

"I could sit in my house all day, but what kind of life would that be?"

Sam had said one day. It would be life. But perhaps you had to be Cybertronian to grasp that concept. Even for Sam, life went on, and after too short he too joined the finality of death. The young yellow scout mourned him for years, and almost died himself from Sparkache.

And cruel though it was, this planet was alive. It was in motion.


	5. Dead end

**A/N: **And the last of the bunch. I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

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If there was one that that could've been said about the Earth, it always was in motion. Judging by the empty landscape and searing temperatures, nothing moving was left.

Even his tough Cybertronian alloy struggled to deal with the extreme temperature, so no living thing could survive here.

Then again, it had been over two billion years since he set foot on this planet, and much had changed since. Perhaps the dominant species had evolved, or a new species had settled on this planet.

Which also made it over two billion years since he'd been resurrected on this very same planet. Perhaps even this spot, though his records of the landmasses differed from what he'd seen when he made planetfall.

_Continental drift_, his CPU let him know, one of the few remaining movings of this planet. More terms drifted into his memory, learnt back when he'd been a youngling and discovered organic planets and its peculiarities.

_Tidal friction_, that's what had doomed this planet. The dominant species of the few peaceful vorns he'd spent here were more fearful of a nuclear winter or global climate change, but what eventually did the planet in, was the natural movement of the seas and the pull of its natural satellite. Through all kinds of important-sounding words and complicated calculations, the core message was: this planet'd been slowed down by its natural satellite enough for the nearby star to vaporize the oceans, rendering this planet uninhabitable.

What became of the humans, no one knew. Perhaps they'd finally completed that space-station where they'd been working on so hard. Or maybe they wiped each other out in a war to rival the Autobot-Decepticon one.

He'd never find out, or perhaps if he ran into some humans in one of his many travels he'd find out what became of them. Though space was mindboggling huge, so the odds on that were not in his favor.

It already was a one-in-a-billion chance that he had found the Earth again. The little blue planet had anchored itself in his memory banks. He didn't know if that was because he was resparked here, or because it had played a significant role in the Autobot-Decepticon war. In any case, the little biological lifeforms had also made an impact on him.

Or at least, their music had. It wasn't often that he came across a culture where the tunes were so moving. No matter the genre, any kind of music held so much emotion, so unlike Cybertronian music that at first he didn't like it at all. It was too overwhelming.

But after he'd made planetfall, died in the Mission City battle and had his Spark re-energized with the Allspark, the melodies grew on him. When he caught himself tapping to the beat one day, he gave up his reluctance and immersed himself in the music.

He still had some of those tunes in his memories, and he played them as he carefully stepped over the dried rock of what had once been the bottom of the ocean. The ground cracked under his clawed feet as he set foot on it, and dust was everywhere.

Unbelievable that this'd once been such a lush planet. He had had good laughs here, a new culture to explore and new friends to make. And when they eventually had to leave to continue their war, it'd been with much Sparkache.

He shouldn't have come back here. This was a dead and dry planet, like so many other rocks in this galaxy. Perhaps if you dug hard enough, you'd come across remains of the humans' existence, but that still wouldn't bring their liaison back, or any of the other humans he had shared his love for music with.

With a sigh, the mech prepared himself for take-off. He may have been resparked here, but that was over two billion years ago. The dust-clouds swirling around him convinced him this planet was no longer alive. It was not in motion.


End file.
